Sharmila was born and brought up in pune in a middle class farmer family. Her father who is a BSC in agriculture chose to to be a banker later in life. She is the first person in her family to work in the entertainment business. Sharmila is an art school graduate with a BFA (applied arts) degree. Although she started her career in 2010 with a show called swapnanchya palikadale on star pravah her major career breakthrough came with portraying 'Rupali' in one of the most popular marathi show Pudhcha Paaul (2011) on star pravah. Sharmila started her career with her screen name Sharmila shinde which is also her birth name, but in the year 2017 she started using her fathers name as her last name on screen. In a press interview with an esteemed newspaper she said, she changed her last name because she believes that an artist has no religion, caste or creed. He/She should not be judged by his name but by his skills. But in 2019 she switched back to her previous name. There has been this confusion about her name around for sometime because of which some electronic and print medias have referred to her as sharmila shinde and others as sharmila rajaram in their articles & content.